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Published: 2014-09-25 02:02:25 +0000 UTC; Views: 2574; Favourites: 22; Downloads: 0
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Lt. Columbo, played by Peter Falk.My local TV station shows three crime shows on Sunday nights, in a row: "Kojak," "The Rockford Files," and "Columbo." I suspect they deliberately put "Columbo" last, just to remind you how different he is from most detective protagonists. The first two shows are watchable, but both feature your typical smooth-talking macho detective. Then comes Columbo, the seemingly dopey, cross-eyed New Yorker, who's suspects never take him seriously until it's too late. It's as if the writers of "Columbo" jotted down every detective cliche and then made sure to subvert it. He's not "handsome." He's not "smooth-talking," "cynical," or "sarcastic." He's happily married (to a wife we never see), and has no interest in femme fatales. Of course, all the best writing would be worthless without Peter Falk's fantastic performance.
That being said, the show *is* quite cheesy. For some reason, all of the murderers are snooty rich people, who are new to killing and really suck at lying.
Apparently they made a spin-off series about Mrs. Columbo, and she was played by Kate Mulgrew! The show was not well-received though, so I don't know if it's considered "canon." Truth, I find it a bit hard to picture Columbo married to Captain Janeway. But who knows. Maybe it could work.
I don't own "Columbo."
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Comments: 20
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I re-watched all the episodes lately. It's right, some episodes are cheesy to the extend of beeing bad (remember the one with the robot? oh dear...), but most of them are quite good. Even though I always wondered why he never had "normal" cases, but only coped with the rich people. I made up my own logic about that: rich people have damn good lawyers, so when you sue them you should be damn sure you are able to proof without a doubt that they are guilty. And I guess Columbo is just the perfect guy to do so. They don't feel threatened by his harmlessly clumsy behaviour and feel safe. 
In the pilot episode (which actually was a stand-alone movie) he had a quite different character. He came along much more like your "stereotypical" detective, beeing a macho, shouting at women and so on.
I also heard about the show with Katie Mulgrew. As far as I know it's not cannon. She was married to a rondom policeman named Columbo. They wanted to surf on the success wave of "Columbo", which is why they decided for that title. They changed the title several times however, when it turned out people didn't like it.
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Really? Wow. That pilot episode sounds like a weird watch. As does the one with the robot. I haven't seen that one either.
I'm glad the Kate Mulgrew one isn't canon. She's cool, but she is NOT Mrs. Columbo.
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The pilot is actually quite cool. It's just a different Columbo... young and with proper hair... and a little less confused and clumsy
Mrs. Columbo was about a reporter who solved crimes. Appearantly the show itself wasn't that bad, but I guess people (just like us) didn't like the idea of Mulgrew beeing the very Mrs. Columbo.
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Interesting!
Maybe Kate Mulgrew's "Mrs. Columbo" was a distant relative. *A* Mrs. Columbo, just not THE Mrs. Columbo. 
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LOL, I remember Columbo once said that one of his nephews was a policeman too 
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A few years ago, I did this "favorite characters" meme and Columbo was on it, but I was a little disappointed that not many people seemed to recognize him. I'd like to chalk it up to my sub-par drawing skills. Actually, no I wouldn't; that might make me feel worse. Well, I recognized your Columbo right away at least.
I've never seen the Mrs Columbo spinoff. At first I thought it was a cool idea, but now I can kinda see why people might not look too kindly on it. I recently saw rumors that Mark Ruffalo might star in a Columbo reboot, and though I was previously skeptical that anyone besides Peter Falk could play that role, I'm hopeful that that becomes a reality.
I can't watch Columbo reruns right now since I'm also a fan of Once Upon a Time and it's on at the same time, but it doesn't matter much since I think I've seen most of the Columbos more than once anyway.
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It's probably just a generational thing. When I was a kid, if someone tried to explain "Columbo" to me, Iprobably would have tuned right out. But if someone said, "That's the guy who played the Grandpa in 'The Princess Bride,'" then I would have replied, "Ooooh! that guy!"
I used to have the same conflict with "Columbo" and OUAT, but as I've now stopped watching the latter, my Sundays are dedicated fully to Columbo.
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That works, I guess.
Yeah, to be fair, I don't think I really knew who Columbo was until I hit my teens. I remember when Tiny Toons spoofed the show, I did not get the reference. I couldn't figure out why the animators were drawing Babs' and Buster's eyes all weird.
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I don't think I saw that one, but I did get my first exposure to "Blade Runner" via "Tiny Toons." And "Muppet Babies" introduced me to "The African Queen."
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That was my first exposure to Blade Runner as well. The episode where they riffed on Columbo was called "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny?" in case you're curious. I'm sure many of us first became familiar with a lot of movies, TV shows, etc. through parodies in children's shows rather than the original article, which may be just as well considering some of the material that gets spoofed wouldn't be appropriate for kids. Not long long ago I saw a "Homeland" sketch on Sesame Street- I hope Sesame Street's main demographic wouldn't get the reference.
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"Sesame Street" has also introduced the new generation to "Boardwalk Empire," via "Birdwalk Empire." 
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I'll need to watch more of it, I've only ever caught a couple of episodes. I can't say I'm immune to cynical anti-hero-ish cops though, my fave cop show is NYPD Blue after all.
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There *are* a lot of great characters who run along the "rude, cynical antihero" line. Indiana Jones comes to mind. Iron Man is another one. The great ones are the reason it became a cliche in the first place. I'm just saying, they need to come up with something different after a while.
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Oh yeah, originality is brilliant, and there's not enough of it. Cliches sell reliably unfortunately.
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Oh, I cannot picture that, Captain Janeway/Columbo? Lol. I kind of want to see whether I can find a clip of that online now though, out of curiosity...
Anyway, great picture!
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Thanks!
I've really fallen in love with the show. I love any lead character who isn't "beautiful" or "handsome" (by typical Hollywood standards). And I'm so tired of the "cynical, sarcastic, macho antihero" lead, that it's such a nice change, to see a stumbling-inly polite dopey guy outsmarting well-spoken rich people with his off-putting persona.
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